Both movies, “Sunrise” and “Red River,” tell stories of two partners who love each other but can’t see eye to eye. The pair in Sunrise are an estranged married couple in which the husband has misplaced the love for his wife and been overcome with temptation that comes from the excitement of the city. In Red River, the pair are a father-son duo who own a cattle ranch together and eventually the allow differences in their methods to cause tension between them. Montgomery Clift’s character, Matt, is softer in that he doesn’t really like to kill people if it isn’t necessary while John Wayne’s character, Dunson, is a very hard character who doesn’t mind taking a life.

In both scenes, binary oppositions help us recognize the lessons that the filmmakers want us to learn. For example, in Sunrise, the wife represents a farm life while the city girl represents a complicated city life which brews a darkness inside of the husband that tempts him to kill his wife. When he realizes that the temptation of the city girl got the best of him, he regrets it immediately and begins to fall in love with his wife once more. The movie teaches us that something that’s new and exciting isn’t always the better than something simple and familiar.

Red River showcases the opposition between Matt and Dunson’s way of handling conflict. When the major conflict occurs between these two characters their methods are highlighted: Dunson shoots and punches Matt while he just stands there refusing to be violent until he absolutely has to. Their fight doesn’t end until Tess takes it upon herself to point out that both of these men love each other and must put their differences aside and learn to work together; she single-handedly blank one of the main themes of the movie.

Through each of their themes, these movies fit into the archetypal types of stories. They each teach universal lessons that will always be applicable.  

On the surface, the movies Sunrise and Red River tell two very different stories. Sunrise, on one hand, follows the lives of a humble countryman and his wife as they rekindle their love for one another after the man is seduced by a mischievous city girl. Red River, on the other hand, follows a group of Texas cattle ranchers on their arduous journey to lead over 9,000 cattle across hundreds of miles in hopes of making a fortune.

While the events of the two movies vary drastically, they share quite a similar theme. Both films aim to portray a message about deep bonds between two people, whether these bonds be romantic or familial. The climactic scenes in both Sunrise and Red River exemplify the power of these bonds, showing the true importance of the love one has for another.

In Sunrise, the malicious city girl is the one that convinces the countryman that he must murder his wife in order to run away with her to the city. He almost goes through with the plot, having prepared his own flotation device and taken her out into the middle of the lake on the boat. Right before he throws her into the water to drown her, he changes his mind. He realizes that he would never kill his true love and regrets ever even thinking about it. The two fall back in love and spend the rest of their lives together.

In Red River, Dunson decides on his own accord that he must kill Matthew. The two have been companions for fifteen years, and their bond is tested simply because of a dispute over who will lead the cattle to Abilene. Dunson chases Matt and the rest of the men for almost an entire month, convinced he would kill his best friend all the while. When he finally arrives to complete his task, he (like the countryman in Sunrise) realizes that he would never be able to do it. The two resolve their dispute and once again become companions.

Where these two disputes differ is the time that the characters spend wanting to kill their loved one. The man only has this idea for a day, while Dunson is set on it for around 22 days. Also, the man’s motivation to kill his wife is provided through the manipulation from the city girl. Dunson is motivated only by his own deteriorated mind and lust for revenge.

In regard to the similarities between the two movies, both Dunson and the countryman are set on killing their companions, and neither of their ‘enemies’ want to fight back. They both resolve their issues without any severe injuries, although Dunson and Matthew do have a fist fight. Finally, and most importantly, both conflicts symbolize a triumph of love and companionship over hatred.

The biggest difference between the two confrontation scenes in the movie Sunrise and Red River is whether the fight is symbolic. Personally, I see the confrontation in Red River as a symbolic fight – which means that its actual influence on the relationship between Matt and Dunson is trivial; Matt and Dunson’s reconciliation is mainly not the result of this confrontation, but is marked by the existence of this confrontation.

On the other hand, the river scene in Sunrise plays the decisive role in developing the plot. Before, the man was determined to go to the city with his city lover, but the confrontation scene on the river seriously shakes his belief and motivation, creating the doubt and fear in him that eventually caused his reconciliation with his wife.

The Sunrise confrontation is therefore so much more significant in its actual effect on the characters. In Sunrise, the man’s decision could decide whether his wife will die or not; in Red River, however, the reconciliation of the two men was a result built up from their years of emotional bond and a series of events that happened beforehand. The only thing at stake in the Red River scene is Dunson’s dominance over Matt, which has obviously been lost in the course of their trip; it was only for Dunson to accept this reality, and the fist fight was “the last straw”, as a somewhat inappropriate analogy, that forced him to accept his loss of power and admit his love for Matt. As we can see, Dunson’s reactions before and after the fight are drastically different. In less than five minutes, he turned from someone who could shoot Matt to who would add Matt’s name on the brand and admit his transference of power to Matt. The motivation of accepting Matt’s dominance has always existed, but it needs this final confrontation as a last push for Dunson to change.

The films Sunrise and Red River both center around a love lost and reaffirmed. In Sunrise, a husband has lost his love for his wife, and in Red River, a mentor has lost his love for his mentee.

While this love is center in each film, they have very different meanings. In Murnau’s film, the husband was having an affair, and his lover suggested he kill his wife so the two could be together. The lover is dressed in all black, a color often associated with evil. Meanwhile, the husband’s loving wife, who still works hard to prepare food and feed the chickens, is left crying on the shoulder of her child, wondering what went wrong. She is dressed in white, the color of purity and goodness. Arguably, then, the man’s struggle between his wife and his lover represents the universal struggle between good and evil. The man, through his affair, is seduced by evil and brought to the brink. Yet, in the decisive moment on the boat, the husband chooses not to kill his wife, a triumph of good over evil.

Meanwhile, in Hawk’s film, we see a man, Dunson, mentor a deserted boy, Matt, over 14 years. During the trip to bring their 10,000 cows from Texas to Missouri, though, Dunson’s obsessions quickly lead to violence, violence that Matt disagrees with. This culminates with Matt stepping in and taking over the journey. At this point, Dunson threatens to kill Matt. After the success of the trip, Dunson indeed shows up to fulfill his word, but when the moment came, he could not do it. We see him in a previous scene confess that he sees himself as a father-figure to Matt. Hence, this final confrontation can be seen as the resolution to a familial conflict. A father’s words are not always right; a son is not obligated to agree with his father; their love should not suffer because of either of the previous reasons.

 

In both Sunrise and Red River, we see the protagonists struggle with relationships with the ones they love most.

Sunrise depicts a romantic relationship, but the river crossing scene shows shots of the husband looking up with dark shadows under his eyes and of his slow, suspenseful walk towards his wife on the boat coupled with the unresolved, suspended melodies of the music, creating an environment in which the audience is unsure of the wife’s fate. When the bells ring in the background, the husband realizes his own actions and rows them to shore.

Red River, on the other hand, details a conflicting, intimate relationship between father and son figures. As Dunson proceeds towards Matt, the music swells in intensity and picks up in tempo, preparing the audience for an action-packed scene. When Dunson begins to beat him, Matt responds for the first time. The music, which had previously stopped, picks up once more. The fighting comes to a close when Tess shoots at both of them and demands they see their love for one another.

In both films, we see a direct reflection of the action of the scene within the musical score of the movie. In addition, the protagonist in each film realizes he loves the other due to the influence of an outside force: the bell in Sunrise and Tess in Red River.I saw Red River as a more effective storyboard for sharing the themes of love and loyalty. In Sunrise, the husband fought with his own adultery and desires. It highlights love as a powerful motivator in both good and bad ways, as love both led him to drown his wife and later save her. However, it seemed unrealistic for the husband to suddenly recall his affections for his wife when he was so hellbent on murdering her only moments ago.  In Red River, on the other hand, the audience was able to see the way their relationship first blossomed and how it slowly fell apart. Most importantly, we saw that Dunson and Matt unconditionally still loved one another throughout the process, even when they began to lose respect for each other. In this manner, Red River addresses the notion of earning respect, particularly in the moment where Matt, previously compliant, begins to finally fight back against Dunson. Because of this prior contextualization, the plot behind Red River seemed more realistic and thus more effective at reaching a crowd today.

An altercation between loved ones if often a good source of climactic tension for movies. In Sunrise, this conflict occurs between a husband and his wife while in Red River it occurs between two men who have clearly formed a father-son relationship. The dynamics of these relationships point out an important theme in both movies: trust. In either movie, one member of the pair (the wife or Matt) stops trusting the other one (the husband or Dunson, respectively) because this second person has threatened the other person’s life. Sunrise also brings forth themes of romantic love and the contrast between the urban and the rural. Red River brings forth themes of family love, power, and ownership.

The scenes differ aesthetically in a few ways: the ‘fight’ in Sunrise occurs at night on a lake, the couple are alone, and the husband recoils of his own accord. In Red River, the fight occurs during the day in a desert, Dunson and Matt are surrounded by the other cattle drivers, and Dunson only stops his attack when Matt fires his gun at him.

The resolution of each conflict also points out a similarity and a difference between these movies. In Sunrise, once the husband stops himself from attacking his wife, he does everything in his power to regain her trust, which she ultimately gives to him. In Red River, Matt takes control of the cattle drive and abandons Dunson in the desert. Once Dunson catches up with the herd in Abilene, Matt refuses to draw on his former mentor, but is willing to put his physical strength to the test in a fist fight. However, unlike Sunrise, a third party (Tess) is forced to intervene to make them reconcile. Both movies demonstrate a critical shift in the power from the originally strong member to the weak one. After the trust has been broken, the wife and Matt hold more power, either emotional or physical, than they did before.

F. W. Murnau’s 1927 silent film Sunrise: a Tale of Two Humans may, at first glance, appear to share few similarities with Howard Hawks’ 1948 western Red River.

To a certain extent, these films tell opposite stories; as the unnamed protagonist of Sunrise desires to abandon the farm life he now resents for a more glamorous place in the “big city,” Red River’s Thomas Dunson desperately attempts to hold on to the life he proudly built for himself – though both characters, as the plot begins, lack the resources to reach their goals.

Here, the conflict builds and, in both films, culminates in a dramatic clash not simply in characters, but also in a struggle between radical idealism and traditional values. Dursen’s conflict, carried throughout the film, represents a struggle between his prideful sense of honor and his underlying sense of familial loyalty, leading to his expulsion from his own expedition, as well as his ultimate redemption in the conclusion of the film. The early death of his significant other highlights his character’s arc as, in the climax of the film, he abandons the idealistic values which led to her death to take on the role of a father figure to Clift (reaping the benefits of his cattle drive despite the “dishonor” and mutiny which directly promoted its success).

In Sunrise, on the other hand, the protagonist chooses his family over an idealistic life in the city in a decision which would be retroactively justified throughout the rest of the film, dramatically returning his relationship to the state allegedly enjoyed (through exposition) before the introduction of radical temptation by the “city girl.” In this regard, the film fails to establish this theme as effectively as Red River; as, though the former certainly expresses a personified conflict between its protagonist’s wife and the “city girl,”  the latter establishes its familial relationship more thoroughly, contrasting it in direct opposition to Dursen’s rigid values.

In both Sunrise and Red River, scenes of physical confrontation play important roles in the narrative. However, differences regarding the extent of violence depicted in the scenes in the context of their movie’s genre and the themes encapsulated by the scenes lead to variation in the effectiveness of the scenes.

The scene of physical confrontation in Sunrise does not display any acts of violence because the husband stops himself before doing such acts. On the other hand, the analogous scene in Red River includes the usage of firearms and fisticuffs. The extent of violence is much larger in Red River, but this is to be expected due to the presence of violence in the western genre. Conversely, the threat of violence in Sunrise is unexpected, which adds to the effectiveness of the scene.

In both scenes of physical confrontation, there are thematic stakes hidden within the narrative stakes. Both scenes involve betrayal albeit different aspects of it, and these distinctions lead to differences in stakes and scene effectiveness. During the first boat crossing scene, the Man from Sunrise has an internal conflict between remaining faithful to his wife and betraying her, which exemplifies the premeditation involved in betrayal. In contrast, Dunson—in the fight scene from Red River—has already experienced betrayal and must figure out how he will react now that he is face-to-face with his betrayer. This is representative of the response to betrayal. Since the fight scene from Red River occurs after betrayal has occurred, it has higher stakes involved. The scene occurs after Matt alienates Dunson, but as the audience discovers, it is not too late for forgiveness. The high stakes and comforting resolution lead to a very effective scene.

As it stands, the two scenes are similar in that both involve one family member trying to kill another. In the case of Sunrise, it’s a husband trying to kill his wife. In Red River it’s a father trying to kill his adopted son. Aside from that, however, the scenes are almost completely different, both in their execution and their themes.

In Sunrise, the husband’s attempted murder was in service of the greater physical pleasure he received from the woman in the city and the potential pleasures he would receive in the city proper. Conversely, John Wayne was motivated more by pride and the sense of betrayal he felt. While both of these motivations are fundamentally selfish, it’s clear that the husband’s motivations are physical, while John Wayne’s are ideological. This is an important distinction, as it establishes the thematic stakes for each of the characters.

Because the motivations are physical in Sunrise, there is a one-sidedness to the confrontation. The wife is ignorant to her husband’s plot up until the moment he moves to throw her off the boat. As such, the scene itself is very tense and labored. Much time is spent showing how afraid she is of her husband, and much time is spent showing how conflicted and tortured the husband is at his decision. The wife has no power in the situation, and the husband is aware of this. He is aware of the evil nature of his confrontation. As a result, there are several things at stake: The wife’s life, the husband’s sanity, and the state of their marriage, should the wife survive.

Contrast to Red River. Because the confrontation is ideological, there is more of an even dynamic at play. Montgomery Clift is well aware that John Wayne wants to kill him. There is no ignorance on his part as to the capabilities and intentions of the aggressor. As a result, the confrontation scene, while tense, is rather fast paced. The characters are both strong willed, as opposed to the more conflicted characters in Sunrise. In the case of Red River, either characters’ life is at stake. On a more personal level, however, their trust is also at stake, similar to Sunrise.

In the end, both sets of characters repair their relationships. Interestingly, however, in Sunrise the confrontation was prevented by the aggressor, while in Red River the conflict was prevented from escalating by the aggressed due to his refusal to act. This shows how the dynamic in Red River is much more equal than in Sunrise. Montgomery Clift was very much an agent in his refusal to shoot John Wayne. The wife, on the other hand, did not have much choice as to whether or not her husband went through with the murder.
As a result, I believe that the theme of broken trust is better resolved in Red River. Both characters were aware of the fracture in between them, and they both had greater awareness of the stakes. While in Sunrise both characters knew of the divide, only the husband had a real influence on the stakes and outcome of this divide. Given that the themes both deal with trust relationships, I feel like the resolution where both characters decide to lay down their guns is more effective than one where just one character does.

In the movies Sunrise and Red River, the protagonists reaffirm their care for one another through a physical confrontation. The conflict in Sunrise is between husband and wife while the conflict in Red River is between a mentor and mentee

The movies similarly convey an emotional constraint through a physical scene. However, it allows for the emotional constraint to transform into an emotion connection, reminding the characters about their love for one another. The scene comes at a point where emotional weight needed to be released. In Sunrise, the scene appears at the beginning where the audience may assume the husband and wife have lacked emotional and physical connection after years of being together. Conversely, the scene appears in the end of Red River after it develops the 14-year mentorship between Dunson and Matt, where Matt disagrees with Dunson’s tyrannical leadership.

While there are differences in the types of relationships in the movies, their purposes and environments differ as well. In Sunrise, the physical fight on the boat represents the husband’s struggle between choosing the city woman and his wife. The city woman represents the new wave of the rural population moving to the cities in pursuit of a better, more exciting life, while the wife represents the traditional values and comfort of farm life. In Red River, the physical fight represents the struggle for dominance. Although Dunson provokes Matt to draw his gun, Matt refuses in order to establish both respect for an authority figure and recognition of his own authority. However, a fist fight emerges where Tess intervenes to remind the two how pointless the conflict is.

In the end, the physical confrontation in both movies result in the rekindling of a loving relationship.